


Such a Pity

by Person



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, bizarre alien biology, flushed relationship, unsure how to rate strange troll sex with human ratings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-13
Updated: 2011-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:04:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Person/pseuds/Person
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Equius and Aradia find one last moment alone together before things really start to go wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such a Pity

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a kink meme request for "weird troll sex that isn't a thinly veiled analogue of human sex. The stranger the better."
> 
> Unrated because I have _no clue_ what the right rating would be when nothing happens that's explicit by human standards but at the same time sex is definitely the thing that's happening here.

Equius didn't check Trollian as often as many of the others did while within the Veil. He didn't share the obsession that so many of the rest had developed with constantly monitoring the humans, almost all curiosity he might once have harbored about the species he'd helped create vanishing when every attempt at contact had revealed that their kind seemed to revel in lowbrow deception, and he was perfectly capable of turning and speaking when he wanted to communicate something with one of the others. As such he felt his time on his computer was better spent at certain human sites that he'd discovered which contained surprisingly accurate depictions of musclebeasts. Most was far from high art, but he sought out the best examples that he could find so that when repopulation began future generations of trollkind would have as many examples of what art should be as possible, beyond just the classic pieces he'd rescued from his hive.

Because of all this Aradia was almost to the transportalizer before he noticed the Trollian notifier flashing at the bottom of his screen. The message he found there was one curt line, 'AA: f0ll0w me' but when he glanced back at her the look she gave him as she vanished into the deeper reaches of the laboratory made him shatter three keys on his keyboard with one unconscious twitch of his fingers.

He followed the order quickly, just in time to see her move on to her own section of the labs, but there she stood waiting when he appeared, her head tilted slightly to one side as she studied him. It was odd how unreadable he could find her at times. He had made her face, carefully building in every way he could think of that it might need to shift and contort to give her a full range of expressions and even inventing a new trick or two to make her features more malleable. He would have thought that in the process of testing it he had learned every expression that she was capable of making and would be able to guess the meaning of them all, but somehow the moment she had entered the soulbot what had once been nothing more than the delicate and carefully calculated movement of fine hinges and shifting metal plates became something more. Something that he had to learn to read anew and still hadn't mastered.

She was too quiet, leaving it to him to break the silence instead of simply saying whatever it was she'd wanted from him. "D --> Did you" he started, and needed to stop and swallow when her eyes seemed to focus on him a little more intently as he spoke, the first drops of sweat starting to bead at his forehead. "D-- > Require something"

"s00n things will change" There was something in her voice, her tone less flat than usual but just as unreadable as her face. Then she reached out, lightly wiping a streak of sweat off his cheek with her fingertips before sliding her hand back into his hair, and his mind went too fuzzy and bright to concentrate on trying to work out what it was. It had been days since she'd last touched him, their time too full first with the final battle and then with fleeing for their lives to waste any on courtship. "i d0nt have a bucket w0uld that matter t0 y0u"

His mouth want dry and his face went wet; if he'd happened to have a clean towel he would have sopped through it immediately as he realized exactly what she was suggesting. His mouth moved wordlessly for a moment before he managed to choke out "D --> That That is" but he needed to stop, breathing in with a sharp hiss, as he fully considered what she was asking. No filial pail? It would be an incredible perversion, one _far_ beyond her simply having a robotic body or being a dead soul within it. One even worse than the fact that there was no mother grub to offer their genetic material to even if they searched out a container that would work.

He really needed a change of clothing. Just considering it had left what he had on uncomfortably moist with sweat, made worse when the answer he came to was, "D --> That would be a%eptable"

She only nodded in reply, as if she'd expected no other answer and saw no need of acknowledging it further. Then, inexplicably, she stepped back and began removing her clothing. "D --> What do you think you're doing This is so unseemly In spite of his chiding and that fact that, yes, what she was doing was _incredibly_ improper, his eyes felt fixed on her. There wasn't a scrap of her body that he hadn't seen, from the smallest chip upward, but that had been back when it was nothing more than an empty shell waiting for her soul to fill it. This encounter was becoming more illicit by the moment, and he only hoped that there was no chance at all of Nepeta needing to find either of them because he would never want her to find out that he'd taken part in something so depraved.

So incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully, depraved.

"there is n0 bucket" she reminded him, not even seeming to notice the state she had him in as she folded her clothes and set them off to the side in a neat pile, even in this situation showing those signs of refinement that made it clear to him that her blood should never have been a shade lower than aquamarine at the very worst. "d0 y0u want t0 ruin y0ur cl0thing"

He could imagine how blue in the face he looked as he imagined it. He hadn't thought of it before but, yes, of course they needed to be undressed unless he wanted to walk back to his room dripping with genetic material on top of the sweat, broadcasting to anyone he happened to pass by _exactly_ what they had done. It was more than enough of an excuse to have him rushing to strip off his own outfit, although if he were perfectly honest with himself he would almost certainly have followed suit even if her reasons had been nothing more than temporary madness, or some strange glitch in her memory, or the result of spending too much time observing human culture. Just the sight of her silvery body being revealed from beneath the cloth which had hidden it would have been enough to goad him into joining her; it was terribly profane, and terribly exciting, and, really, why should it be so indecent to emulate the ways of the musclebeasts whose bare bodies were glorified as the highest subject for all forms of art?

For all that this had been her idea Aradia had seemed almost passive, not really giving any indication that she cared what happened, but now she took the initiative with a kiss. Her lips were cold and hard against his--her entire _body_ was cold and hard against his in a glaring reminder that there was nothing left between them to provide cushioning or insulation--and he knew that his own body heat would gradually give her an imitation of warmth but nothing would ever soften steel until it was as yielding as a living body. And, though he was fully aware of the types of things the others said about him behind his back for perusing a relationship with her while she was in this state, he wouldn't have changed that even if he could.

Because of what she was bones didn't crack and crumble when he pressed his hand against her cheek. Her teeth didn't shatter at the pressure of his mouth against hers. Her body was the end result of sweeps worth of research, of the things he'd learned from every robot he'd ever destroyed, and he was absolutely sure that as long as he never allowed his feelings to follow her lead and urge him into raising a hand against her on the days when her passions darkened to black it would never break beneath his strength.

They had never done anything more than this before, too busy with the game and under no pressure to mate as soon as possible when there were no surviving imperial drones and the only mother grub left had yet to hatch and was locked into a card besides. But now one of her hands made him shudder by scratching teasingly softly down the side of his neck, and the other pressed flat against his chest and pushed him backwards with a flare of her powers behind it to actually give her the strength to move him. He held her to him when he fell, although it was hardly necessary when she was moving with him anyway.

She had no recuperacoon, choosing a low table for them to land on instead, but one moment and one accidental bang from his elbow later and they were landing again, this time on the thankfully more durable floor. He lost his shades in the fall, when his head banged against the ground and jostled the temples enough to make them slide up, but he couldn't care. Not when she sprawled on top of him, resting her forehead against his with her hair falling around both of them like a curtain, and when their eyes locked their tryst began in earnest.

With his feelings for her equally as strong as everything else about him he knew that it could easily end in an instant. In fact, it _should_. The faster the mating ritual could be completed the stronger the bond between a couple was, and the stronger the bond the stronger any progeny the mother grub bore from the results of their union would be. If mating took much time at all then it was a sure sign that it wasn't happening between a _true_ match, but one of the lesser romances just strong enough to satisfy the imperial drone that all trolls passed through until they could find someone more suited to them. Too long and they would even be culled just as surely as if they'd never found anyone to temporarily plug into that quadrant, unless they had a strong enough bond in the other concupiscent quadrant to produce genes which weren't so utterly useless.

To draw things out simply because he wanted to enjoy the feeling of her against him for as long as he could moved past the simply perverse and into the outright tasteless when so many trolls before them had desperately prayed that they could speed things up enough to keep the drone from getting restless. But there was no one left to judge whether they were taking too long or not, and Aradia, all the time in the universe dripping from her fingertips and leaving her with no reason to ever rush, seemed content to let him set whatever pace he chose even if it was a ridiculous one.

So he began by focusing on a feeling so slight that not even the most foolish low-blooded wriggler would ever have been fool enough to try relying on it in front of the imperial drone, a feeling which he could only build up from. He slid his hand into her hair and focused on it. He'd spent days on that hair, attaching the finest chains to her head one by one so it could move and flow almost the way it was meant to instead of having the stiffness that would have come with even the thinnest wire. But though he'd given her body a rudimentary imitation of a nervous system, even refining it until she could experience strong pleasures and pleasant pains once her soul was within it and she could guide him until the feelings were right, delicate sensations were simply out of her reach. Where her hand just barely brushing through the ends of his hair was enough to make his whole scalp tingle, he knew that the same feeling was beyond her ability to grasp or his to give her.

And he pitied her for it.

The feeling of it shivered through him with much more force that the simple physical sensations of her body pressed closely to his. It was amazing how when it came to Aradia even a slight pity was enough to stir him that much, his body already anticipation the stronger feelings to come.

He pressed his hand flat against her scalp, his thumb running back and forth along the curve of her horn, and pitied her for the memories held within it. When he'd given her the ability to transfer the things she saw and heard from her body to any other computer he hadn't thought of it as more than a simple function that he might as well just throw in; who wouldn't want to be able to store good memories to rewatch with perfect accuracy or even share with others if they had the option?

How could he ever have guessed the way she'd start multiplying herself, all of the versions of her constantly sharing their memories with each other as they happened? How could he have known that her mind would eventually be filled with the memories of thousands of deaths instead of just the one? This pity was still a small one, only because _she_ didn't seem especially bothered by it and it just wouldn't do for him to get more upset than she was, but he could feel his veins throbbing with it.

He slipped his hand forward to brush his fingers over her lips, their shade showing the entire world the amazing gift he'd given her by being the first troll to ever successfully raise his matesprit's place in the hemospectrum, and allowed himself to be filled once more with the first pity he'd ever felt for her. For that filthy slop that had filled her veins when it was so blindingly clear that some type of terrible mistake had been made when she was first laid. Now that he knew the truth about their origins he suspected that it was Karkat's fault somehow, a wrong button pressed at a wrong moment or some other such nonsense pumping the wrong shade of blood into her freshly formed body. Switching what was meant to have been hers and what should have been Gamzee's, perhaps, and answering many of the questions which had plagued him in his time knowing them both.

It was a pity that had filled and consumed him, born almost the instant that he'd met her and firmly pinned into his mind by the end of their first conversation. He would never understand why everyone who'd met her while she was still alive didn't pity her--everyone who mattered, at any rate, of course the filth-bloods would be glad to know that someone like her had somehow been dragged down to their level--but he would hardly look a gift hoofbeast in the mouth if he was the only one to see just how pitiable she was and could court her without competition.

Every move which she made, even the slightest flick of her finger or tilt of her head, was a study in grace. Every word she spoke carefully considered and genteel, occasionally regrettably tainted by the slang of her class but that was more than made up for by how rarely she let slip any of their usual foul-mouthed vulgarity. Her voice itself rang with refinement, quiet and cultured and perfectly suited to a lady of the highest classes. And it was all natural, not a fraction of it the carefully studied and rehearsed and absolutely repulsive act of a low-blood putting on airs above their station. Everything about her, _everything_ , screamed that she should be a member of the aristocracy, yet somehow her veins had been filled with that rust-red swill.

And he'd pitied her fiercely enough for it that it had inspired him to do the impossible and rescue her from her station, draining himself day by day in order that she might rise. Immersing himself fully in it for the first time, their first mating, made his heart pound, his breath come in harsh pants. When he dragged himself out of the inner theater of his pity to focus once more on his fingers on her mouth he could see that his nails had grown into dangerously sharp claws, his body ready to finish the ritual whenever he was.

But he wasn't yet, though he'd reached the point where prolonging the end was growing painful. Because that pity had faded slightly now that her blood was exactly as blue as his own, making way for a fresh new one to become the strongest of them all.

He settled his hand over the welded scar covering her heart and let it rush through him, this greatest pity unending and unyielding. Because he'd wanted for her to feel exactly as strongly as she should when they mated, he _wanted_ her to get as much from this as he was, but that had been ruined in a fist through her chest and a wash of blue blood. He knew that she _could_ feel without the chip, less than she had while she was still alive, it seemed, but obviously more than she had while she was a ghost. It had been her feelings for him, not his for her, that shaped every step of their relationship; her flushed days when he was allowed to dote on her, the black moods when he accepted her blows and her screams and did his best to act distant because she wouldn't want his pity but he couldn't risk destroying her with his hate, and that exact moment when she was the one who had called him there and offered herself to him. He could only follow her lead, do whatever it was that she wanted, the secret leader who he listened to above all others.

But he had no idea how strong those feelings of hers could be. He had no idea how much pleasure they could bring her, if they could fill her up until she was choking from it the way they should or if she was just putting up with this for his sake. If he could use his claws against her the way he should then he would know, but that just wasn't possible. Not when her robotic body was unable to produce new blood on its own and he still hadn't been able to entirely refill it after the heart-smashing incident. He'd tried, at first, drawing from himself as often as he safely could, but then she'd begun to multiply and share memories between herselves until even she had trouble keeping track of which her was the prime body and he couldn't chance wasting the blood that was meant for her on a doomed alternate self. He wouldn't dare risk harming her if her feelings _were_ mating-strong and breaking through her metal skin made her lose more blood--and, more importantly in an immediate physical way even if it obviously paled before the importance of the blood itself, the oils and coolants that had been added to it--than she could spare.

So either her feelings were too muted to work up the proper mating fever, or she was experiencing it but would be denied her ultimate release. Either option was unacceptable, but there was nothing he could do to change them when she would never allow him to make her another chip and draining himself dry to refill her veins more quickly would only serve to switch the balance of impotency.

And that was it, the pity to overwhelm all others, because he wanted to be able to give her _everything_ , everything that she'd missed in the long sweeps she'd spent dead, but he couldn't make this right for her. He couldn't give her what she needed, whatever that might be.

All of these pities, great and small, rushed through him, welling up in his throat and filling him until it was too much, until he couldn't breathe around them. He should be bowing over a pail. She should be kneeling across from him with her own bucket, the two of them touching each other with nothing but their claws, instead of lying sprawled over him with their bare legs entwined and the breath she didn't really need ghosting cold and metallic-smelling over his face. There should be a drone in the corner preparing to lop off their heads, they were taking _so long_ , instead of the perfect privacy of her room and all the time they could ever want so long as there were no unexpected Jack Noir attacks. This was all wrong, and filthy, and _perfect_ , and for a moment he honestly thought he was going to die of it, her last black revenge for installing the chip without her permission, because he really _couldn't_ breathe and he was sure that she was meant to give him his release before it reached that point. And he would honestly have been fine with that, couldn't imagine a better death.

Then she pushed herself away from him a little so she had room to bring up her hand, and he had just a moment to see the flashing claws before she jammed them down into the throbbing sack that had swelled up at his throat and released his genetic material.

With the position they were in and without a bucket the catch it the blood spurted out over both of them in a great splashing gush. Charged with red feelings the color had paled, and though he'd already been sure that he'd been led to her by troll serendipity there was still a moment when he was ridiculously grateful to see that the shade of it was almost white with only a faint blue tinge, a sure sign of the strength and truth of his feelings.

The blood only continued fountaining out for a moment more, the holes her nails had left in his neck closing with remarkable speed as soon as he'd spilled enough to fill a pail. He knew that shortly when he wiped the mess away he'd see no sign of the wounds but four small scabs, exactly the shade of his genetic material. In their world the mark would be a sign to the next imperial drone to pass him by that it could stop by his hive and collect the contents of his personal pail then make a note down next to his name that he would only need to provide caliginous material the next time one visited. The color would tell it that it should really do so as soon as possible, because they would be providing especially dominant genes to the slurry.

In the Veil it would just be a sign to the others that they weren't _all_ making ridiculous messes of their relationships.

She was still propped up on her elbows over him so he pulled her down into his arms. As he did so he noticed that his nails still hadn't retracted, his body confused that he hadn't yet provided her with her own release, so he did the closest thing her could and gently caressed her throat with his claws.

And for the first time she gave him a clear sign that, _yes_ , her body was reacting to him as well, in her short gasp at the tap of his nails and the throb of blood strong enough that he could feel it under his fingertips even through the metal of her skin.

He stared at her helplessly, not knowing what he could do for her; his fingertips twitched, just itching to pierce her, but she _did not have enough blood_. He couldn't allow himself to forget that, any more than he could let himself forget that he must never strike her when her feelings turned caliginous. It had taken him sweeps to create a robot worthy of her, he couldn't risk harming it and leaving her bodiless and blank again.

Maybe just a single hole would work. He'd never heard of anyone doing such a thing to know what would happen; if she only bled out a fourth of the genetic material she would usually lose to mating she could afford the loss, but if the entire pailful just left her through the smaller wound it wouldn't do any good at all. He was considering risking it, wondering if he did if the color would be flushed bright or caliginously blackened, when she covered his fingers with her hand and stopped them from rubbing lightly over her throat.

"its 0kay" she told him. "i kn0w and its 0kay"

The reassurance made him relax a little, but he couldn't exactly say that it made him happy. "D --> I would not want you to think I'm unwilling to reciprocate" he told her, then pulled her closer and buried his face in the links of her hair. "D --> You are e%quisite" and he felt fervently that it was true, the word not only chosen because it happened to contain an 'X'. The sight of her before he'd blocked it out was amazing enough to almost make him want to go again, her body dripping with both his clearly reproductive blood and the sweat that had smeared from his body onto hers--he made a note that he must make sure she washed off thoroughly before the salt caused her to rust--and she didn't seem to mind at all. No one else would even lay a finger on him when he badly needed a towel, even Nepeta only doing so if she was already in midpounce before she recognized the state he was in, but she was perfectly content to let his sweat drip over her, beautiful and filthy and his perfect match, the only one that he could touch or who would want to touch him.

His body finally seemed to realize that, no, he wouldn't be stabbing anything and his nails slowly retracted back to their regular length. All at once he was hit by a wave of almost overwhelming exhaustion, the bloodloss hitting him and leaving him light-headed and groggy. He did his best to push it aside, remembering the orders he'd been given even if everyone else seemed happy to ignore them; no sleeping, anyone.

But she seemed to realize what he was thinking, and quietly told him, "sleep is 0kay t00 y0u sh0uld d0 it finding y0ur bubble quickly will be easier f0r me if y0uve already started t0 shape it," and though he didn't really understand her meaning he did recognize it as an order, shaped as a suggestion though it might be, coming from the person whose orders transcended all others. He stopped his struggle against sleep, helped along by her hand stroking softly through his hair. She was so rarely gentle that he wished he could savor the experience, but with his head swimming and exhaustion beckoning and her instructions still ringing in his ears he knew that he couldn't.

As consciousness faded away he heard her add "i kn0w it w0nt help but try t0 remember that i was here with y0u and w0uld y0u really rather just get a hug" those words even more confusing than the last. Then her lips brushed softly against his temple and he heard one final thing before sleep claimed him; "what i pity m0st ab0ut y0u is that y0u have n0 idea whats t0 c0me" she whispered, "the str0ngest pity 0f all"


End file.
